Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday February 22, 2012 @02:41PM
from the check-it-out dept.

YokimaSun writes "Sony has today released the PSVita in the U.S. and Europe. The console comes with features such as dual touch pads at the front and rear, dual cameras at the front and rear, dual analog sticks, a 5-inch OLED screen, GPS, six-axis motion sensors and a three-axis electronic compass. The PSVita is Sony's attempt at stealing the thunder away from the 3DS but also bringing back the gamers lost to the likes of Android and iOS Devices. The PSVita in Japan sold massively on its first release week but since has struggled and sold less than the PSP. With this in mind sites like Amazon have been offering manydifferent deals to entice people to buy the console. Can Sony stop homebrewers from taking over this console?"

...they removed the drive from the PSP. After spending considerable $$$ on games on those tiny disks, they made them unreadable and unplayable on their new hotness... and that was the end of my relationship with them.

Any console manufacturer that tosses compatibility in the trash is saying "hey, feel absolutely free to take a look at all the competition and see if there's something better!" at the very same time you're steaming mad at them for turning your investment into a waste.

Oh, but Sony is *letting* you re-purchase your PSP games for your PSVita at 15% off Retail (well, retail price at the time of original release of the title) for you to be able to download it to a slightly tweaked MicroSD card with a 300% markup!

They care about you, and want to enable you to continue to play the same game that you had yesterday... And to format shift your game, they are giving you a discount compared to needing to re-buy the same game over again! A discount!

They are doing *everything* that they can to make you happy, all the while helping their poor, defenseless developers who *need* to buy in at $12,500 / year to develop software for your game console. How would multinational corporations feed their children if they *didn't* charge you for continuing to use exactly what you had yesterday?

Maybe it can't even play original PSP games because of the different processor architecture, and including extra chips to fully support backwards compatibility would make it too expensive. If you want to play your old PSP games, use your PSP. I know it kind of sucks carrying 2 devices around but there are some considerations for making a device backwards compatible more complex then ensuring the same media type is used in both platforms. Also, this will probably cut down on piracy big time, as using propr

You are a moron. Sony has not, by this decision, affected your finances in any way. Lost opportunity is not the same as theft! They never hinted that you would have the ability to play PSP games on anything other than a PSP. They never promised or implied that the PSP would be manufactured indefinitely.

Choosing something else when your PSP gives up the ghost is rational, but your reasons are anything but.

So by not replacing you are scrapping your investment yourself when you could replace the broken PSP with a working model (secondhand). Since you are not going to replace Sony has made the right decision

Boy, are you confused. First of all, I might indeed buy a used PSP, but that does absolutely nothing for Sony -- they earn no income from it. Only the previous PSP owner receives my money. I'm certainly not going to buy any more UMD's -- the format is dying on the vine and the number of machines that can run them drops by the day, specifically thanks to Sony. Again, no income for Sony. Most importantly, if Sony had made the new machine UMD-capable and game-compatible, I'd have bought it no question. When it comes time to buy a NEW machine, it'll be from someone else, because Sony has lost my trust. And I should point out that the reason that they had my trust in the first place was that my PS2 ran my PS1 games, and my PS3 ran my PS2 games. It seemed that they understood the issue. And yes, I bought all three machines, though only the PS2 and PS3 are setup in the home (no need for a PS1, you see, though we still can, and still do, play the games.)

A sync cable or even peer to peer wifi and some sync software for the PSP and PS Vita would enable people to transfer their collections. Run software on PSP, run software on PS Vita. PS Vita gets an image of the game encrypted against the user's PSN account. Occasionally, the Vita might challenge the user to do a further validation sync to prove ownership. It's quite feasible to do and even if legal issues prevent them from supporting some 3rd party titles, it wouldn't stop them from enabling their own. The

I put money into the PSP (several for the family), but I put far more money into UMD games. That money returns entertainment for all of us. It would return entertainment for much longer if compatibility were in place. However, the moment the PSP is replaced with an incompatible system, the entertainment value of that money drops to zero.

That is the sense in which I mean "investment" here.

When I have to replace the PSPs, since I no longer have compatibility concerns about the UMD (and therefore PSP) investme

This is slashdot - We use car analogies. What if I bought a 1949 Ford and spent a bunch of money improving it. Then, just a few years later, Ford stops making replacement parts for it and my improvements are incompatible to remove and install in their new model. I could go buy the replacement parts used, but instead I'll boycott Ford.

Microsoft put backwards compatibility above everything else for the better part of a decade, look how well that worked for them.

As far as I know, the results of that effort are that they have the most OS's in place; the most commonly used office suite; and that software I compiled back in 1995 still runs fine, delivering me results without further work. Mind you, I'm running XP in a VM on my Mac now, but I *am* running XP, and I purchased it legitimately. Specifically because it still works.

Sony decided to do a "pre-launch" in the US and EU at a 71% markup so that the early adopters could get it in their hands a week early.

Basically, shafting their own customer base who would stand in line on day one, but also creating two separate "stand in line" days, one for people whom money is not an issue and don't care the price as long as they get it now, one where the price is still significantly higher than any other handheld game console, but safely able to let their user base know "we aren't fisting you as much as we already did our early adopters!"

Seriously, the same problems with the PSP now plague the Vita. It doesn't do what it needs to do. It has absolutely SHIT for battery life. The web browsing experience is a cruel joke.

And the one thing that drove gamers to buy them, homebrew that FIXED most of this crap, is what Sony spent their time trying to kill and threaten people about, much in the same way Sony threatened people for trying to put OtherOS back on the PS3 after it was removed.

What Sony is doing is not illegal or even wrong, but in many people's minds it is simply poor business practice. If many consumers choose not to purchase a Vita due to it not having a desired feature, that is not illogical. People are essentially saying "Screw you Sony, I'm tired of buying new hardware from you that won't run my old software, when I can buy Nintendo hardware instead that continues to offer backwards-compatibility with no additional software fees."

Actually, it does what it's meant to do very well: it plays games. Homebrew was, by and large, used for piracy, rather then legit homebrew. To cater to the homebrew folks, they have playstation suite, which is in a closed beta right now.

Sony wouldn't give a shit about homebrewers if not for the fact that for every legitimate homebrewer there were countless others using modded firmware to play pirate games. It's no wonder they cracked down on it hard. If I had billions riding on a platform's success and revenues then I'd feel the same way about it too. Even as an owner I wouldnt want to see the platform lose out on premium titles and turn into a wasteland of shovelware because the margins fell out of the market.

Sandboxing is enforced, signing is enforced, there are no remote administration packages installed, no local filesystem browser, it has forced updates that prevent you from logging in if you have not run updates...

Sony screwed themselves over on the PSP with a general lack of good games. I foolishly purchased a PSP shortly after its release, bought and enjoyed Lumines, and then waited patiently for more good games to come out. Once I realized this was unlikely to happen, I cracked the PSP and used it as a portable SNES emulator. It didn't take long after that before I just sold it and purchased a DS.

I picked up one early. Got the 3G early Adopter's Bundle, which came with a free month of 250mb of 3G and activation, an 8 gig memory card and a free game.

So I've more than made up my losses for going 3G, but the damn thing decided to not power back on when I got to work and I wanted to check the status of it's charge. I searched around, found out you had to hold the power button for SIXTY seconds, then another 2-3.

That aside, the screen is BEAUTIFUL. I hope more devs aside from Kojima take advantage of the rear touchpad. Played with the interface a little. Very smooth. iOS smooth. I just hope owning this thing isn't the pain in the ass I fear it will be.

The problem with your little theory is that no, Sony hasn't been on lockdown. They've been as open as possible at every turn except for the Memory Stick/UMD on the PSP, and now, well, the weird little memory units. Going back to the PSP/PSPGO, it makes sense.

Okay, I went a little overboard on the metaphor, but my point stands. "Except for the Memory Stick..." That's actually a huge deal considering it's an all digital platform. I got away with the included-in-the-box memory card when I had my PSP-2000 because all the games were on UMD, but now that ALL the things are digital, it's a big deal. A 32GB Memory Stick Pro card will run you about $95-100 (newegg/amazon). The same size SD card is less than half that. Now, they even have a proprietary connector for

While I agree with what you're saying, it should be noted that the Xbox 360 does support SD cards if it's plugged in to a USB adaptor (and obviously formatted as FAT). Also, not to long ago, Microsoft finally added the ability to use a standard USB flash drive as a storage devices for game saves and downloads.

More important question -- will Sony stop getting in the way of people wanting to make games and thus make themselves relevant again? Can you imagine how much different the Android and iOS situation would be today if Apple and Google were trying the "make life hell for developers" strategy?

I've been told that Sony stops getting in the way once you've 1. released three commercially successful games on Microsoft's Windows platform, Google's Android platform, or Apple's iOS platform, and 2. moved out of your home office into a dedicated office.

I keep having to mention this, but they are already way ahead of you. the Vita supports the PlayStation suite, which is an android framework for game development. You should be able to use that to prove ones worth, then move up to PSN games or even full vita games from there.

Yes, you can get a $15 one-time discount on a single purchase from a highly questionable website in exchange for being registered to a pay service at the price of $16 / month. Sounds like you've found a real winner right there!

Yes, you can get a $15 one-time discount on a single purchase from a highly questionable website in exchange for being registered to a pay service at the price of $16 / month. Sounds like you've found a real winner right there!

Not to mention that these Andorid and iOS devices are things people are going to buy anyways. If you are going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a device...1. If it is a phone, then you can justify it as useful to daily living.2. Does it have business/educational usage.3. How well supported is it and will it last me enough time for me to get sick of it.Finally how well does it play games.

Android and iOS doesn't absolutely suck at games. For the most part they fill the void that games do, help you pass t

In my experience, most phone games aren't worth more than $1, and many are overpriced at a dollar. They are very simple little games. Now that's fine, and indeed what I want for my phone. When I'm waiting at the doctor's office or something I want a game I can play for a bit and set down when needed.

However to pretend that they are in the same league as $40-60 computer or console games is silly. 50 Android games would not give me the same entertainment as one computer game does. Quantity doesn't out do quality always.

Agreed, there's not much out there in Android-land as good as Skyrim or Civilization or the obscure hex-based military strategy games I like. However the PSVita games aren't that good and cost just as much.

So... Serious gaming time is at the PC with the fantastic monitor and video card and great games at a fair price, etc. Skyrim, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, the free star trek online.

Walking around goofing off gaming time is the phone. I like the "age of conquest" basically RISK series of gam

There's a lot of heavy-hitters on the iOS store now -- Grand Theft Auto III, Soul Calibur, the Final Fantasy games. I'd say those are worth more than a dollar. They look pretty great and play so-so. The play so-so part is the problem -- not the game's fault, but lack of physical buttons. And until the touch devices find some way around this (and having physical buttons or a dedicated non-screen touch area like the Vita seems the only ways around it), game genres that require complicated button sequences an

If the sales in these 2 regions don't do well, they will seriously need to consider the same action Nintendo took with the awful sales for 3DS, instant price cut and reward those who bought early. (otherwise face being hated by them, of course they'd likely do that anyway)Sadly, it seems the whole iPad generation really did hurt gaming. Not so much consoles, but certainly the handhelds.The poor sales in Japan might just be that Japan are going off handhelds, it might not be the same over here. I guess we

The poor Japanese sales were, imho, largely due to the lack of the killer app: monster hunter. Until that game, or something very close to it, drops for the vita, sales will lag behind a bit. The 3ds had the same problem over there till Tri-g came out, then suddenly it flew off the shelves. Sony's probably wining and dining Capcom to ether ensure Mh 4 gets a psv release, or get some other psv focused MH game out.

Actually, it costs them a ton. Piracy killed us publisher interest in the console, and in the later years, it was almost entirely Japanese developed games. It was a massive problem here, and one of the big reasons they locked this one down.

Budding video game developers still need to make games that Anonymous Coward considers "shitty" while learning to develop less-"shitty" games, just as budding writers' initial output falls into Theodore Sturgeon's 90 percent crap.

Would you consider a polished falling block game to be still a "tech demo"? If so, I used to make falling block games for the NES and GBA: Lockjaw (PC, GBA) [pineight.com] is like Tetris but you can change a lot of the rules, and Luminesweeper (GBA) [pineight.com] proves that the PSP's flagship launch title underused the PSP. This is in addition to a collection I'm making of some worthwhile homebrew games for the NES [pineight.com]. And have you tried Super Bat Puncher [morphcat.de] yet?

Part of the problem keeping freeware games developed by hobbyists at roughly

Sony just can't stop screwing itself over... the last news is that Sony will NOT be offering the service available to the Japanese to turn UMD discs into downloadable games. The reason? Low sales... piracy off course.

So... who is affected by this? The pirates? Non-Sony customers? No. They are not affected. ONLY paying customers who bought Sony products are affected by this, punished to either carry two consoles or re-buy their games at near full price.

Sony is already way behind in the west so to combat this, they provide less service to the few customers they managed to get. Either this shows an amazing disconnect with the real world by Sony exec's or they don't mind sending the message "If you buy our goods, you must be stupid enough to pay twice for the same game".

You might think Sony would have been warned to provide an amazing experience after the failure of the 3DS. It wasn't just the 3D element, it was that the device was a throwback compared to the DS XL and just didn't offer a smooth or indeed even better experience then a mobile phone, let alone a tablet. Look at the 3DS again, the screens are amazingly bad considered against the latest phones. They aren't worse then previous gameboys but those didn't have any other devices people ALREADY will have in their pocket anyway.

My prediction is that the Vita will fail even harder then the PSP. The line up games are again very slim pickings with some of the bigger games still not realizing that a MOBILE games is played OUTSIDE and that therefor the display needs to be extremely clear because a sudden ray of light while in a dark area can ruin the game. In normal PC/Console games such dark moments are called atmoshere, outside they are called "I can't see a fucking thing" and then your avatar dies.

Early GBA games required you to write down a very long hex key to "save" the game... game companies seem to barely have moved on from this... except android/ios game makers. Do you know WHY angry birds is such a success? Because you can easily start it, easily resume it. If the crappy controls cause a miss, you can easily restart with no punishment. The game would do EVEN better if you could skip levels. I never bought it because I never made it past a certain point so what is the point of buying even more levels?

Mobile games have to fun, easy to play, fast to start, playable on the go and in changing light and not punish the player for having to suddenly stop playing or even accidental input. And they should be cheap.

Sony hasn't gotten any of this right. The hardware looks okay but so did the original. And as said, this time there is a LOT more competition, competition that is often consider a MUST have (can you really exist anymore without a cellphone?). What about people without a smartphone you say? Right... they do exist but if you think the overlap between (refuses to buy a smartphone) and (wants to buy a fairly expensive handheld game console) is very large... well you must be working for Sony.

The PS3 is NOT [wikipedia.org] the top selling console in the world. Of the current generation consoles, it's the worst selling. Overall, the PS1 and PS2 are the top selling, but that was a very different time.

The only reason I have one is because I won it from TacoBell. I can't even use some of the features because I don't have a PS3. None of my old PSP games will work on it (even the downloadable ones). None of my friends with a PS3 are interested in buying it from me at half MSRP...:(

Either the author is seriously mistaken about Sony competing with iOS/Android, or Sony is joking. Take at look at the prices of those handheld games - they're full price, some at $50 USD! Since everyone and their mother (and grandmother) already has an iOS device, there is no way Sony will claw back any revenue lost to the army of 99c Apps. Maybe from the Sony Devoted, but I can't see anyone dropping their iPad to buy a Vita (yet another gadget) when iOS delivers a mobile gaming experience already.

If price of games was the only differentiating favor in a gaming platform, nobody would play anything other than Solitaire and Minesweeper. The platforms don't compete with each other any more than a thirty year-old Datsun competes with a modern Ford Focus or either of those compete with a Ferrari 458.

Believe me, I love hating on Sony, too. (i.e. I am NOT purchasing a Vita just because they retroactively removed a feature of the PS3.) But, seriously dude, this one ain't gonna gain any attention. Sony's touting multi-player, making GPS available for that actually makes sense.

Well judging by the PSP games, i dont think thats going ot be much of an issue. Owned a PSP for its entire lifespan, and ive bought 6 games for it total.(got 2 more for free after the PSN incident)... Lets not forget that AAA games on Vita cost $50 USD. I just cant see how they justify that cost for portable games considering the competition that is about to be unleashed. I really liked my PSP, so much that i bought a second one after i lost my first, but they are simply too greedy this round. If they hadn

This actually really interests me because it will have skype availability along with a slew of other apps. Having this as a potential phone along with the potential for great games is certainly tempting.

Ive had one since they came out and I wouldnt touch the Vita at that price. $150, tops. Sony is going ot have a hard time fending off Kal-El at that price. The ability for a smaller (then Sony) company to roll their own console has been radically increased in the last few years. Asus says they are bringing out a 7" Kal-el 7" tablet for $250. At that price point, ANYONE can roll a console as powerful as PSVITA, AND PsVita is going ot be stagnant hardware for the next 5 years. The market is COMPLETELY differe

I picked up my 3G model this morning. It sat on my desk at work all day glowering at me, but I've been able to mess around with it a bit since I got home. My experiences thus far can be summed up in three observations:

1) As a piece of kit to hold in your hand, it is gorgeous. It looks and feels like a premium piece of kit. It's possibly a bit on the large side for a handheld, but the quality of build feels great. The display quality is amazing and the touchscreens are extremely precise.

2) As a handheld gaming console, it is excellent. The games I've tried thus far: Uncharted, Wipeout and Super Stardust are all closer to PS3 quality than to PSP/3DS quality. The dual analogue sticks are an absolute revelation and it would be very hard to go back to a portable gaming platform that didn't support them (be it the 3DS or iPad) without feeling a twinge of regret.

3) As a general user-experience it is, at best, below average. And here's where a bit of explanation is needed.

I get the machine home, fire it up and start going through the initial setup. I set my region, set the time and date and connect it to my home wifi. I decide to leave the 3G network setup for later. So far, so good. I then get prompted to link the device to my PSN account. Great - I like the idea of having the same account shared between my PS3 and my Vita and I'm sure that Sony have made the process nice and easy. So I tap the box for "I already have a PSN account" without a care in the world.

The device does a quick scan of the network and tells me that I need to do a firmware update before I can connect to the PSN. At this point, I feel a bit irritated. The PS3 has been massively compromised by the frequency of and time required for firmware updates, and it doesn't bode well that the Vita is headed down the same path. But... whatever.

I click "ok".

And now I'm back at the prompt asking me whether I have a PSN account or not. A bit confused, I tell it again that I do. Cue the message about needing a firmware update. I'm stuck in a loop.

A quick google shows me that I have to answer "no" and create a temporary account that I use to download the firmware update and then link my "proper" PSN account. At this point, I'm really starting to get quite cheesed off. This is a long way from optimal. But anyway - I follow the instructions and set the firmware update running.

10 minutes later, the machine reboots with its new firmware. Ok, that's about 5 minutes faster than the average PS3 firmware update, but it's still pretty poor.

Ok, so, the firmware's updated and the Vita can access the net through my home network. Time to get the 3G set up. I shut the machine off, insert the Vodafone pay-as-you-go SIM that's included with UK 3G models and fire it back up. There's a nice obvious icon on the start screen to set up the 3G provider, so I tap it.

At first, everything seems to be going well. The Vita opens the Vodafone website and I opt to purchase 10 GBP of credit using my credit card. I note at this point that the web-browser is a bit shit, but in fairness, I realise that the utterly crapulent nature of the Vodafone website isn't helping either.

I fill in the form with my credit card details and tap the button to pay. But what's this? An error - saying that the service isn't available at this time. I try again - same error. I try again with my emergency backup card. Same problem.

So I go to google again. A lot of trawling through the Vodafone forums finally reveals the problem; the SIM won't activate properly if the Vita tries to do its first top-up using wifi rather than the 3G connection. I need to go into the settings menu, disable wifi and then try again. I do so, and am finally able to buy my 3G credit.

Right, now, time to transfer some content off my PS3. I got rid of my old PSP for trade-in credit a few days ago, but shifted all of my downloaded games back onto my PS3, so I could stick them straight onto the Vita. I get the USB connector that came with the Vita and hook th

To be fair, all of your setup issues are documented in the quick setup guide. It tells you to put the SIM in before you start the console the first time, and to use the temporary account for firmware updates. But that doesn't excuse Sony from making things so weird in the first place.

To be fair, all of your setup issues are documented in the quick setup guide. It tells you to put the SIM in before you start the console the first time, and to use the temporary account for firmware updates. But that doesn't excuse Sony from making things so weird in the first place.

You don't have to pay again if you already owned the title digitally. It's only us who had physical UMD's who have no way of getting a digital version without paying for it. The problem is, how to let us with physical games get a copy, without having to worry about piracy? There are no CD keys for PSP games, and few would be willing to do a 1:1 trade, with the original getting destroyed.

Are there individual serial numbers on the games or discs? If there are, perhaps Sony could get retailers involved and allow users to go to a game store, get their serial number entered into a database, and receive a redeemable download code.

Say my team has developed a more or less feature-complete prototype of a video game, and I want to distribute it on an open platform. To which open handheld device with a directional pad and physical buttons, sold in stores in the United States, do you recommend that I port the game?

Say my team has developed a more or less feature-complete prototype of a video game, and I want to distribute it on an open platform. To which open handheld device with a directional pad and physical buttons, sold in stores in the United States, do you recommend that I port the game?

At which point you slap yourself on the forehead and ask "why didn't I see what was available when I started?"

If you're a seasoned game developer, you can buy a Vita dev kit and get on with life. Or you can go buy a 3DS dev kit.

There's a reason why Nintendo is my favorite of the big three video game companies, and it's not just nostalgia. Nintendo isn't interested in crippling their own hardware in order to "protect" their own movie studio or their own music publishing business. They don't have a giant monopoly whose profits they're using to muscle their way into other areas of business. (Back in the day if you did something similar with gas stations it was definitely illegal.)

Nintendo may have done some pretty questionable things back when they were on top in the video game industry, but even then they were still restricted to the video game industry. Maybe if they'd expanded into other areas and became just as big as Sony and Microsoft then they'd be pulling the same kind of crap, but they didn't so they aren't.

Nintendo certainly has their own problems, but currently those problems stem from trying to force the game industry towards areas i don't especially care for and failing to butter up third party developers sufficiently. I'm "forced" to invest in Sony's console if i want new "old-fashioned" games like Disgaea, however in the portable arena the DS and 3DS have plenty of content spanning all genres, including the "classic" ones, so as long as i'm willing to accept alternative games in the same genre i can avoid Sony for this particular case.

But as usual these are my own opinions, i'm sure others think Sony is a great company and love the Vita.

And, interestingly, received none of the complaints sony got. I suppose that's because sony scrapped it very early in the generation, while Nintendo kept it till pretty recently. Nintendo's biggest problem is they are very arrogant, and seemingly think nothing of any other developer. their consoles are designed to play the games they want to make, and not what others may want to do. That's why the 3ds lacked power, a second stick, or even an online network worth note.

Nintendo isn't interested in crippling their own hardware in order to "protect" their own movie studio or their own music publishing business.

It is however interested in ensuring that games bought in Japan won't run on European or USA units, and vice versa. This is a far more deal breaker than what you report to me. (Microsoft leaves the lock to the publisher, while Sony, at least for physical games, goes region free).

As an owner of a USA PS3 living in Europe playing mostly Japanese games (yes, a mixture of things), I like the fact that I can get a copy whenever in the world and knowing it will run. Region lock sucks.